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Despite the well-recognized importance of recycled water, the study of industry-peer pressure on recycled water is relatively new. This study investigates how organizations experience and react to industry-peer pressure to set recycled water targets. Additionally, this study investigates the role of board chairs involved in sustainability committees in contributing to responses to industry-peer pressure.

Using Eviews 12, this study employed a pooled logistic regression model to analyze data from 1,346 firms on Taiwan and Taipei exchanges (2017–2020).

The findings revealed that frequency-based imitation drives recycled water target-setting diffusion. However, there is no direct relationship between outcome-based imitation and recycled water target-setting. Notably, outcome-based imitation drives the adoption of recycled water target-setting of firms with board-chair membership in sustainability committees.

This study faces certain data limitations. First, this study primarily focuses on water recycling. Future research could explore other ways to reduce water usage, such as using water-efficient equipment. Second, this study gathered information solely on the presence or absence of a board chairperson on the sustainability committee. Future researchers could explore the impact of the composition of sustainability committee on recycled water target-setting. Lastly, the sample used in this study is restricted to Taiwan's corporations that existed during 2017–2020. Future researchers may consider adopting a longitudinal design in other economies to address this limitation.

The findings of this study offer several guidelines and implications for recycled water target-setting and the composition of sustainability committees. It responds to an urgent call for solutions to water shortages when pressure from governments and nongovernmental organizations is relatively absent. The number of industry peers that have already set recycled water targets is indispensable for motivating firms to set their own recycled water targets. In terms of insufficient water-related regulatory pressure and normative pressure, this study found evidence suggesting that the direct motivation for setting recycled water targets stems from mimetic pressures via frequency-based imitation. The evidence in this study suggests that policymakers should require companies to disclose their peers’ recycled water target information, as doing so serves as an alternative means to achieving SDG 6.3.

Recycled water target-setting might be challenging. Water recycling practices may face strong resistance and require substantial additional resources (Zhang and Tang, 2019; Gao et al., 2019; Gu et al., 2023). Therefore, this study suggests that firms should ensure the mindfulness of board members in promoting the welfare of the natural environment when making recycled water target-setting decisions. To reap the second-mover advantage, firms must consider the conditions in which board members can more effectively play their role. Corporations may help their chairpersons in setting recycled water targets by recruiting them as members of sustainability committees. Meanwhile, chairpersons tend to activate accurate mental models when the water conservation performance of pioneering industry peers is strong enough to indicate the potential benefits of adopting recycled water target-setting. Investors’ and stakeholders’ understanding of how the composition of sustainability committees is related to recycled water target-setting may help to identify the potential drivers of firms’ water responsibility. Investors and stakeholders should distinguish firms in terms of the board chair’s membership of their sustainability committee and focus on water-use reduction outcomes in the industry. This study provides insights into circumstances whereby chairpersons help to restore the water ecosystem.

This study explains how frequency-based and outcome-based imitation are two prominent mechanisms underlying the industry-peer pressure concerning recycled water target-setting. Moreover, this study fills literature gaps related to the moderating roles of board-chair membership in sustainability committees concerning industry-peer pressure on recycled water target-setting.

Information infrastructures can enable or constrain how companies pursue their visions of sustainability reporting and help address the urgent need to understand how corporate activity affects sustainability outcomes and how socio-ecological challenges affect corporate activity. The paper examines the relationship between sustainability reporting information infrastructures and sustainability reporting practice.

The paper mobilises a socio-technical perspective and the conception of infrastructure, the socio-technical arrangement of technical artifacts and social routines, to engage with a qualitative dataset comprised of interview and documentary evidence on the development and construction of sustainability reporting information.

The results detail how sustainability reporting information infrastructures are used by companies and depict the difficulties faced in generating reliable sustainability data. The findings illustrate the challenges and measures undertaken by entities to embed automation and integration, and to enhance sustainability data quality. The findings provide insight into how infrastructures constrain and support sustainability reporting practices.

The paper explains how infrastructures shape sustainability reporting practices, and how infrastructures are shaped by regulatory demands and costs. Companies have developed “uneven” infrastructures supporting legislative requirements, whilst infrastructures supporting non-legislative sustainability reporting remain underdeveloped. Consequently, infrastructures supporting specific legislation have developed along unitary pathways and are often poorly integrated with infrastructures supporting other sustainability reporting areas. Infrastructures developed around legislative requirements are not necessarily constrained by financial reporting norms and do not preclude specific sustainability reporting visions. On the contrary, due to regulation, infrastructure supporting disclosures that offer an “inside out” perspective on sustainability reporting is often comparatively well developed.

Grounded in the stakeholder theory and signaling theory, this study aims to broaden the research agenda on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing by uncovering public sentiments and key themes using Twitter data spanning from 2009 to 2022.

Using various machine learning models for text tonality analysis and topic modeling, this research scrutinizes 1,842,985 Twitter texts to extract prevalent ESG investing trends and gauge their sentiment.

Gibbs Sampling Dirichlet Multinomial Mixture emerges as the optimal topic modeling method, unveiling significant topics such as “Physical risk of climate change,” “Employee Health, Safety and well-being” and “Water management and Scarcity.” RoBERTa, an attention-based model, outperforms other machine learning models in sentiment analysis, revealing a predominantly positive shift in public sentiment toward ESG investing over the past five years.

This study establishes a framework for sentiment analysis and topic modeling on alternative data, offering a foundation for future research. Prospective studies can enhance insights by incorporating data from additional social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Leveraging unstructured data on ESG from platforms like Twitter provides a novel avenue to capture company-related information, supplementing traditional self-reported sustainability disclosures. This approach opens new possibilities for understanding a company’s ESG standing.

By shedding light on public perceptions of ESG investing, this research uncovers influential factors that often elude traditional corporate reporting. The findings empower both investors and the general public, aiding managers in refining ESG and management strategies.

This study marks a groundbreaking contribution to scholarly exploration, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, by being the first to analyze unstructured Twitter data in the context of ESG investing, offering unique insights and advancing the understanding of this emerging field.

Drawing motivation from the greater exposure to uncertainty and condition changes that affect large projects due to their long lifecycle, this paper aims to investigate how the time factor affects the use of governance mechanisms to pursue the success of these projects.

To pursue its aim, the article applies the dichotomization between the hard and soft mechanisms of project governance to the analysis of a historical case study, whose findings are organized over the short, medium and long periods. The case selected is referred to the peculiar water system, made up of tunnels named “bottini,” that was in use in Siena (Italy) as the old aqueduct. Specifically, the study focuses on the project of expansion of this water system that was realized during the 14th century for the construction of the “Bottino maestro di Fontegaia.”

This article highlights the different relevance that, during the lifecycle of large projects, is assumed by hard and soft governance mechanisms, with the former having main relevance in a short and medium period, and the latter usually emerging in the medium period and, subsequently, playing a growing role for the project success in the long period.

The article contributes to the literature on large projects by providing novel insights about how the time factor impacts the governance of these projects. Furthermore, the case study, with its unique history, highlights the relevance of combining effectively the hard and the soft dimensions of project governance to pursue success.

The aim of this paper is to propose a basis upon which accounting reporting can be developed to reflect real values and the real economy. It aims to address the environmental considerations discussed in the UN debate (Bebbington and Unerman, 2020) and the concern for a “better life-world”, which is the theme of this special issue.

Addressing the task involves the application of the philosophy of pragmatic constructivism (which explains how people can relate to their reality in ways that lead to successful action) and the philosophical concept of the “good life” (which establishes the values to be pursued through action and so defines action success). Also, it outlines the necessary characteristics of measurement frameworks if they are to be effective in the development and control of human practices to achieve desired values.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for guiding the measurement of how a sustainable good life has improved and/or deteriorated as a result of organisational activities. It outlines a system of concepts on basic and instrumental values for analysing the condition of maintaining a sustainable good life in real terms. This is related to the financial results and societal regulations to analyse and adjust controls according to the real economic goals. Also, it provides a system of value measurands to produce valid information about the development of a sustainable good life. The measurand makes accounting reporting reflect the conditions of the good life that constitute the real economy instead of merely the financial economy driven by shareholder capitalism. Providing tools to analyse whether the existing practices of business and social regulations promote or counteract the real economic goals of producing a sustainable good life means the measurement system proposed makes the invisible hand of the market visible.

The mechanism proposed to enable accounting reporting to reflect real values and the real economy is a new conceptual framework that will allow accounting to more fully realise its potential to contribute to a “better world”. In aiming to serve a sustainable good life, accounting reporting will inherently foster ethical social practices.

One of the best ways to assist China is through infrastructure investment. China might become more resilient to natural calamities by pouring more money into its transport network. Analyzing the relationship between China's degree of planned expansion and the country's current network of transport hubs can help with city development estimates. A wide range of factors were taken into consideration while evaluating China's dominance and the caliber of its transportation infrastructure. Using a geographical autocorrelation model and a coupling coordination model, the dynamic link between China's adaptability and the caliber of its transportation infrastructure is examined.

China's northwest is underdeveloped in comparison to the southeast, which has a high level of resilience and development of its transportation infrastructure. The relationship between the levels of resilience upheld by China's transport infrastructure is suggested to be coordinated.

The authors find a positive geographical autocorrelation between the degree of coupling coordination and the degree of agglomeration, despite the fact that the distance between cities increases with time. They now believe that there is a connection between an area's population density and the degree of interspousal cooperation within. The consequence is an improvement in both national security and economic prosperity. The facilities for disaster management and transportation in China have received several proposals for improvement.

The authors' Practical Implications suggests that scale inefficiency is a major contributor to the relatively poor efficiency of China's primary inland river ports. Different types of inland river ports may have vastly different water system efficiencies. Input and output congestion at China's important interior river ports has reached 51%, making it very clear that massive amounts of valuable port resources are being wasted.

Many variables, such as climate and human error, affect the total amount of goods that can be moved via inner river ports. Ports situated either higher up or lower down the same canal may perform better or worse, respectively, depending on the circumstances.

The Agenda 2030 have drawn a lot of interest in academic studies. This necessitates accounting research on nonfinancial reporting and sustainable development goals (SDG) disclosure in an under-investigated context. The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of nonfinancial reporting practices to SDG disclosure by 120 companies from 12 African nations for the years 2016 to 2020.

The study uses a content analysis to gauge how much information are disclosed on SDG by the selected firms. The authors carried out content analysis using the global reporting initiative frameworks to determine the level of SDG disclosure across the companies by examining the selected nonfinancial reports.

Sustainability reports account for 50% of such SDG disclosure making it the highest. This is followed by corporate social responsibility report which accounts for 23%, while environmental reports account for 20% and Chairman’s statement accounts for 7%. The result is expected since corporate sustainability report has been the major channel for disclosing activities relating to social and governance issues in recent times.

The results of this study demand that corporate entities in Africa take responsibility for their actions and exert significant effort to achieve the SDG. While the government has the main responsibility, corporate entities must support the SDG to be realized.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few studies that examines nonfinancial reporting practices with a focus on SDG disclosure. In addition, this study offers novel insight into how accounting research contributes to nonfinancial reporting practices and SDG disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how effectively leading sustainable hotels have integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their reporting. The main aim is to pinpoint areas for improvement concerning SDG reporting which can help the hospitality industry to achieve a transformation in a more SDG-aligned global tourism system.

For this study, a content analysis technique was used to extract the information regarding strategic consistency of SDG reporting. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were applied to the analysis of this information. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which the materiality analysis, corporate targets and performance indicators defined by the world’s top sustainable hotels in their sustainability reports are consistent with those SDGs linked to the business. To that end, the authors have selected the most sustainable hotels according to the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment in 2020.

The results of this study show that the most sustainable hotel companies did not take a strategic consistency approach when reporting the SDGs. These findings identify four areas for improvement concerning reporting, which may promote the adoption of a strategic and consistent approach in SDG reporting.

This study includes a set of recommendations to provide the market with complete, coherent and comparable information on their contribution to the SDGs and, therefore, foster collective learning to bring about sustainable tourism transformation.

This paper represents a contribution to the discussion on the strategic or symbolic implementation of SDGs at a corporate level. In addition, this paper reflects a deeper understanding of how hotel companies could improve their reporting and management system to contribute to SDGs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the off-office audit of natural resource assets on the prevention and control of water pollution against a background of big data using a differences-in-differences model.

This study constructs a differences-in-differences model to evaluate the policy effects of off-office audit based on panel data from 11 cities in Anhui Province, China, from 2011 to 2017, and analyzes the dynamic effect of the audit and intermediary effect of industrial structure.

The implementation of the audit system can effectively reduce water pollution. Dynamic effect analysis showed that the audit policy can not only improve the quality of water resources but can also have a cumulative effect over time. That is, the prevention and control effect on water pollution is getting stronger and stronger. The results of the robustness test verified the effectiveness of water pollution prevention and control. However, the results of the influence mechanism analysis showed that the mediating effect of the industrial structure was not obvious in the short term.

These findings shed light on the effect of the off-office audit of natural resource assets on the prevention and control of water pollution, and provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of relevant environmental policies. Furthermore, these findings show that the implementation of the audit system can effectively reduce water pollution, which has practical significance for the sustainable development of China's economy against the background of big data.

This study quantitatively analyzes the policy effect of off-office auditing from the perspective of water resources based on a big data background, which differs from the existing research that mainly focuses on basic theoretical analysis.

This article aims to clarify the impact of stock market liberalization on corporate green technology innovation, analyze its mechanism from the perspectives of financing constraints and environmental management level and explore heterogeneity.

Using the panel data of Chinese enterprises from 2010 to 2020, this article adopts the multi-point difference-in-difference (DID) method to test the impact of stock market liberalization on enterprise green technology innovation and its conduction pathway.

The outcomes demonstrate that stock market liberalization contributes to the furthering of green technology innovation. The heterogeneity test reveals that this promotion is more pronounced for private companies, small-scale companies and companies with high information transparency. The mediating effect test shows that stock market liberalization boosts green technology innovation by alleviating corporate financing constraints and improving corporate environmental management.

This article elucidates the impact path of stock market liberalization on corporate green innovation based on alleviating corporate financing constraints and improving corporate environmental management levels. From the perspective of corporate green technology innovation, this article provides evidence from emerging market countries for the economic effects of capital market opening, which helps to further improve the level of green innovation.